Loan Counseling Experiment

Northern Essex Community College, along with 50 other colleges across the nation, has been selected to participate in an experimental loan counseling program conducted by the Department of Education. The program will test the effectiveness of adding counseling sessions and a host of new tools in helping students manage their debt.

There will be two randomly selected student control groups at NECC. The first group will receive the currently required entrance counseling session when applying for their first federal loan. The second group will be required to complete an additional counseling session each subsequent year they request federal loans.

The two groups will be carefully tracked over several years and the Department of Education and the college will measure the data to determine what factors are helping students to be successful. The data will also help the Department of Education determine what’s most successful nationally and make policy decisions based on what they learn.